We export raw tobacco at an annual value of plus or minus $800m. Studies have shown that if the same quantity of tobacco is value added and beneficiated, the country would realise no less than $6 billion, much more than our consistently $4 billion annual Budget!
That is why I am convinced that a diligent Domestic Resource Mobilisation thrust can enable Zimbabwe to craft a $10 billion annual national Budget. This would make it possible for Government employment costs to come down from the current 97% of the erstwhile approved Budget to between 30% and 35%.
Furthermore, Domestic Resource Mobilisation will make it possible for devolution of power and socio-economic programmes to Provinces to make economic sense to the people of Zimbabwe. That constitutional 5% of the national Budget that must devolve to each Province will not be a mirage. In that way we can indeed realise rapid, equitable and balanced development in Zimbabwe.
To further bolster Domestic Resource Mobilisation, Parliament must ginger the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to urgently reform the matrix of the taxation regime on similar lines adopted by Singapore and Rwanda. There is need to rapidly move towards digital taxation based on virtual codification of our tax basket. That economic trajectory will guarantee Zimbabwe to attain an upper middle income economy by 2030.
Accordingly, this Pre-Budget Seminar provides us with an opportunity that must be used to put the country back on a launch pad to economic vibrancy. Millions of our people look up to us for strategic direction. Such trust should and must not be betrayed by a perfunctory approach by Parliament in designing the 2019 national Budget.
It is an imperative that this Pre-Budget seminar maintains its forte as a best practice in the region and beyond on how Parliament and the Executive can create seamless synergies that promote convergence of development priorities which must anchor our national Budget.
The seminar has to emerge as a forum where Parliament and Line Ministries, particularly the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development ought to engage in brutal truthfulness in crafting a solid Budget geared to serving the national economic interests of the people of Zimbabwe.
Principally, this is an opportunity for all Members of Parliament, through their Committee Chairpersons, to dissect all the nuances of the 2019 Budget in order to enhance inclusivity and ownership of the process and thereby give legitimacy to the Budget Assumptions and Proposals by Treasury, if agreed to by the people’s representatives.
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